


and the rest of it

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Community: ladiesbingo, Episode 9, Ficlet, Friendship, Gen, Pre-femslash if you squint, Rivals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 12:48:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9491576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: Mila's anxious for Sara to have a life of her own. Sara isn't too worried.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the ladiesbingo prompt 'direct'

They sat there in the top tier of the stands while the rest of the audience filed out. Mila didn't say anything, and Sara wished she would.

'I didn't ruin it,' Sara said at last. 'I was worried, but he was OK.'

'Mickey?' Mila raised her eyebrows.

'Mickey. I thought, afterwards: trust me to pick the worst possible moment. I had to say it, but why then? But he's OK,' she said again.

Mila didn't ask what she'd said. She only commented, 'Everyone thinks it's creepy, the way he is around you. _About_ you.'

Trust Mila to come straight to the point. Sara smiled. ' _I_ think it's creepy. That's why I told him to cut it out.'

Mila looked very cynical. 'Has that worked?'

'I don't know, yet,' Sara admitted cheerfully. 'Give it time.'

'You're a skater, Sara. How much time do you honestly believe you have?'

'It doesn't affect my skating. On the ice, there's only me. I'll beat you next time,' she added as an afterthought. Mila might be her friend, but she was her rival, too, and it didn't do to let her think she was getting some kind of psychological advantage out of the cracks in the façade of the Crispino edifice.

'But what about the rest of it?'

'The rest of it?' She knew what Mila meant, of course she did; over the years they'd giggled too much over their rivals' love lives, she'd deflected too many questions about her own, not to know what Mila meant by _the rest of it_. She just wasn't quite ready to let Mila know that she knew it.

Mila shook her head despairingly. 'Dating. Love. You know. Life.'

It had turned into a serious conversation, Sara thought. She hadn't intended it to, but perhaps there was something to be said for getting all the serious conversations out of the way on the same day. 'All that can wait until I'm not a skater any more. Like you said: how much time do you think I have? I can leave it a few years.'

It was obvious from the look on Mila's face that this was an alien concept. Where Sara sorted her life into neat little boxes, closing the lid on one before she opened the next, Mila threw herself at everything head-on. Love, skating, friends: if they all came together, then she would welcome them all together. 'But why?' Mila asked. 'Why wait?'

'Because,' Sara said, staring at her own shoes, 'It's a lot easier. And I don't want to jeopardise Mickey's career if I don't have to.'

'You worry too much about him. You're far kinder to him than he deserves. If he were my brother I think I'd have throttled him by now.'

Sara shrugged. 'So he's a bit creepy. Let him be creepy. I'm the only person who's got any right to be bothered by it, and it doesn't bother me.'

'But how can you stand it? How are you ever going to have a life of your own if your brother's always shackled to your ankle?'

'Because...' Sara began, and swallowed. She hadn't meant to say this, but she couldn't stop herself now. 'Because he doesn't know that when that life of my own shows up, I'll just step out of the shackle. And he'll be looking the other way.'

And she lifted her eyes to meet Mila's bewildered gaze, and held it until the bewilderment cleared and she knew that she was understood.


End file.
